


Acceptance

by Blandings13



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Feels, M/M, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:33:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24648772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blandings13/pseuds/Blandings13
Summary: Two years after Hogwarts, Sirius catches himself examining his feelings about his family and unknowingly begins to heal.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 34





	Acceptance

Sirius’s bladder woke him. His brain working furiously to catch up with his body, eyes blearily squinting in the early morning light, he stumbled into the bathroom.

The past two years had passed in a whirlwind. His life after Hogwarts was not at all as he had pictured as a tentatively hopeful five-year old. In these small hours, before the day actually began but the night had definitely ended, Sirius thought back to those innocently anxious years. The memories were vague, half-formed pictures, but the emotions were still painfully easy to recall.

Eyes still closed, he perched precariously on the toilet seat, and remembered what he used to be. Parroting his parents’ beliefs, wishing and hoping he would make them proud. Those were simpler times. He remembered a time before Regulus was born, when he was the sole scion of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. He had been taught to hate anything and anyone who challenged his narrow view of the world.

Was he still that person? Was there still a small child trapped inside him, hoping for his parents’ approval?

The grey eyes were almost clear now, focussed unseeingly on the shower opposite, elegant features twisted in a scowl. If he was being honest, perhaps a tiny part of him still wished that his family could accept him. If not approval, perhaps he craved understanding.

The water gurgled through the old pipes as he washed his hands, meeting the eyes of his reflection in the mirror above the sink. After a thoughtful moment his eyes wandered, trailing over his reflection until they found an old scar on his bare shoulder. He had been…twelve years old, he decided. Yes, that sounded correct. His mother had just learned about the company he kept while at school. Still reeling from dodging the curse she aimed at him with her wand, he had failed to duck quick enough to avoid the snuffbox that followed. His grandfather’s gold snuffbox, he remembered.

He did not remember the crunch that snuffbox made when connecting with that frail young shoulder, but he remembered the emotions it had evoked. Hurt...betrayal...anger...loss, and...a small resolve.

Before starting at Hogwarts, his rebellions had been minor. Just a general questioning of his family’s ideology, a feeling that something was not right, insignificant battles that his mother had not noticed, tantrums his father had accepted and even encouraged. But the Sorting Hat’s decision that he belonged in Gryffindor had cemented something in him, given him hope, watered the seed inside his chest.

His brother in everything but blood, and his best friend, had both nurtured that seed. Sprouting, the hope had burgeoned, grown, encompassing him, making him believe in miracles.

And this was a miracle, he thought, as he padded back into the bedroom. His eyes floated over the sleeping form draped in the bedclothes. A bare leg, a slender thigh, and a broad back. The tightly muscled shoulders, one round bicep arching over the pillow over loose brown curls. Artfully long fingers loose in sleep, and those beloved features relaxed, for once, and not troubled.

Sirius’s eyes began the entire circuit again, committing the image to memory, vowing silently that this memory at least would include both the image and the emotion it evoked.

He looked closer the second time, eyes noting exactly how the figure looked in the soft light. How the skin was nearly silver as it stretched and puckered over innumerable scars, how it still managed to look unbearably soft. He remembered the feel of that skin against his; he intimately knew the textures and planes of that body. He knew where it was most susceptible to his touch, knew where a brush or a stroke could linger, could bear down. He knew how those long, long limbs felt around him, knew exactly how those fingers would curve around his face. He knew also how perfectly those shoulders cradled his head, supported him through everything he was and everything he wanted to be.

The strands of that thick brown hair were extremely fine. The hair darkened into curls when it was wet, and became frizzy when it rained. The curls would creep over that high forehead, and slowly grow and intrude into those deep green eyes. When open, the green eyes were kind, immeasurably kind. Sometimes they would be alight with humor, sometimes they would dance with mischief, they could, Sirius knew, darken in passion, and they could narrow with pain. But the eyes never judged him. Those eyes, much like the person they belonged to, understood all that Sirius was.

Making his way back into the bed, he felt grateful. He had the acceptance and understanding of those who mattered to him. Family, he knew, was more than blood. What more could he want?

He pressed a kiss on the creamy shoulder near him, and curled a loose hand over the bare chest. He was on his side, pillowing his head over a bent arm. He pressed his body into the exposed back, face burying against warm skin. He breathed in deeply, eyes closed, fingers still stroking gently and slowly over his lover’s chest, absently tracing the scars.

His best friend, his lover, his life. His Moony.

Remus made an indistinct sound and turned towards Sirius in his sleep. His body fit itself around Sirius’s, cocooning him, sheltering him, accepting him. Sirius’s lips were still curved happily, and happily, he relaxed until his body and mind joined Remus’s in sleep.


End file.
